Aphelion
by Amicitia Revenant
Summary: One minute passes quickly. But years pass too, in their own time. You fix things, and life gets better. But nothing can ever be like it was... Sequel to "Shatter" and "Like Gravity".


Aphelion is the point in a celestial body's orbit at which it is furthest from the Sun. For Earth, the distance at aphelion is 152.1 million miles. For Pluto, it's over 4.5 _billion_ miles. That's a long way out.

The point is, when people who live with their feet on the ground go through tough times, they say they've hit rock bottom. People who spend too much time looking at the stars say they've reached aphelion.

Ha, ha.

It's not that funny when you're out there.

* * *

My name is Donatello. Life as a mutant turtle has always been hard, but the last few years have been especially rough. It started when my older brother Leonardo died in an unfortunate incident. I used to be able to hear his voice in my head, but now I don't anymore. I really miss it.

My younger brother Michelangelo has brain damage as a result of the same incident. He's getting better, but taking care of him is a lot of work.

My middle brother Raphael was more or less disowned over all of this, but now he's back. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

My father died a few months ago. The next day, my best friend April gave birth to a baby girl. Casey insisted on naming her Shadow. I don't understand why.

My name is Donatello, by the way.

Did I already mention that?

* * *

"Mike cannot go to April's!"

"Yes he can!"

"He's barely been out of the Lair in five years." I crossed my arms, staring Raphael down. "How do you expect him to get there safely?"

"I'm standing here!" Mike broke in. He only was able to because Raph couldn't answer my question right away. Even with all his recovery, his speech was infuriatingly slow. Half the time I finished his sentences for him. I'm sure I used to be more patient.

"He's stronger than you think, Donnie," Raph said.

"You're seeing what you want to see," I countered.

"What I _want to see_ ," Raph said through clenched teeth, "is you not arguing with me."

"Gosh, if only it were that easy." I turned to Mike. "Mike, I want to see you fully recovered right now. There, problem solved."

Raph's face was turning redder than his mask, but before he could explode, Mike interrupted again. "Just forget it!" He threw up his hands. "I don't have to go to April's to see a baby; I'm seeing two of them right here!"

It had been six months since Shadow was born and we hadn't seen her yet. April had invited us over as soon as she got home from the hospital, then given us our space. We were still raw from Master Splinter's death, and she understood that we needed some time to work things out ourselves. Too bad we weren't any good at working as a cohesive team anymore. That was kind of what we had always kept Leo around for.

"You know what?" I said to Raph. "You're right. I've always liked simple solutions, and not arguing with you is pretty simple." I made a mocking gesture of deference. "You're in charge. Do whatever you want."

The answer didn't come quite as quickly as I would have thought, but when it came, it was predictable. "All right," Raph said. "We're all going to April's. Tonight."

"Yes!" Mike pumped a fist in the air. "You're the best, Raph."

I didn't know what that made me, but I didn't care. I'd learned young not to need anyone's approval. The only people available couldn't recognize my genius.

* * *

I left Raph in charge of all the details. _You have to be quiet_ , he reminded Mikey, and _no showboating_ , and _follow me and Don_.

"Yeah, I got it," Mike said impatiently. No, he said, he didn't remember the route to April's apartment, but yes, he remembered why we were going. What would he do if he got separated from us? Hide, and wait for us to find him using the tracker in his Shell Cell.

I had taught Raph how to use the trackers, not long after he moved back in with us. He had tackled the lessons with the same ferocity with which he used to break down doors and slice open enemies. If he had taken such an approach to his studies since childhood, he might have made something of himself. Oh, well.

"Where's your Shell Cell?" Raph asked, a very wise question.

Mike patted his belt pouches. "Uh…"

Raph pointed in no particular direction. "Find it right now, and then twenty flips, cuz you know you're supposed to have it on you at all times."

When did Raphael become Splinter Junior?

* * *

In the end the trip to April's was uneventful, so maybe Raph's less cerebral approach to life had been perfectly good all along. We sent Mike through the window first, and then climbed in after him, crowding the little kitchen.

April's apartment used to seem bigger. Of course, that was before she let a manchild and an actual child move in with her. Casey had always been kind of a minimalist in terms of _stuff_ , but Shadow appeared to be a congenital hoarder. April had described to me over the phone all the paraphernalia she had been acquiring for Shadow - apparently this is typical behavior among humans - and I had not been able to understand why an infant would need so much furniture and special equipment.

In addition to the apartment now containing less free space, my brothers and I occupied more volume than we used to. Interesting fact: mutant turtles, like their naturally-occurring cousins, _do_ have infinite growth. At 25 years old, we were still putting on height and weight, though less rapidly than when we were children. Some day, theoretically, we wouldn't be able to stand up under April's 8-foot ceilings.

But anyway.

"Hey guys," April said, as she came into the kitchen cradling her daughter. "I'm so glad to see you."

Raphael - who has always had a need to physically dominate others, but who has also always had a not-so-secret soft spot for the weak - immediately lost it. Leaning over Shadow, he could not seem to form a coherent sentence, as though he had suffered a sudden aneurysm.

Just what we needed; more brain damage in the family.

April let us all take a turn holding Shadow - Raph, and then Mike, and then me. When it came time for me to hold the baby, I thought I was ready. I had held plenty of fragile and volatile things before. I had helped the wounded and cared for small animals my brothers brought home and held Splinter as he died. But none of that, it turned out, was quite like holding a baby.

Her eyes were very blue.

* * *

Going home was slightly more eventful. Mike was so overstimulated he couldn't stop himself from replaying aloud the visit that had just concluded, and his loud commentary almost got us caught a couple of times. When we got home, Raph assigned Mike another punishment, increased it when Mike whined, and finally had to order Mike straight to bed. That involved standing over Mike while he did his bedtime routine, and then almost forcibly tucking him in.

Raph came out of Mike's room rubbing his head, and stopped when he saw me standing outside my lab, watching him.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," I said. "That was a nice evening."

"Next time," Raph said, with a fascinating lack of awareness of the irony of the situation, "don't argue with me."

He disappeared into the dojo, and I expected to hear him working over the heavy bag or practicing with his sai, his typical modes of unwinding from a stressful day. Instead, though, I didn't hear anything.

Curiosity had never killed the Turtle - though it had come pretty close on a number of occasions - so I edged towards the dojo doorway to investigate what Raph was doing in there.

He was sitting in the dark. He had lit a candle on the altar we'd built for Leo and Master Splinter, but it wasn't making any light.

He was praying.

"I take it back," Raph was saying, as I strained my ears to listen. "God, I wish I could take it back. Leo, all those times I said I wanted to be the leader… I was wrong. Being the leader sucks. No wonder you had such a stick up your ass all the time. I'm sorry I kept kicking it further in there. I sure wish you were here to tell me what to do."

Well. An unconventional prayer, but a pretty insightful one.

"Okay. I understand." A long pause, and I burned with jealousy that Raph could still hear Leo's voice, when I couldn't. "Thanks, bro."

I retreated to my lab before Raphael realized he was being watched.

* * *

My phone rang softly in the middle of the night. That was typical. In the past six months, as far as I could calculate, April had gotten a grand total of approximately five hours of sleep. This was also apparently normal for new mothers. What was probably less normal was new mothers dealing with their sleep deprivation by calling mutants who lived in the sewers and had only an indifferent relationship with the concept of a regular schedule. I had come to enjoy our incoherent 2 AM phone calls.

But when I picked up the phone, it was not April.

"Don, it's Leo."

"I'm sorry," I replied. Muzzily, I rubbed some of the sleep-crud from my eyes. "Leo can't come to the phone right now. He's dead."

"No, Donnie, _I'm_ Leo," hissed the voice on the phone. "I'm not dead. I've been held captive for - I don't know how long."

"What?" I said. I pulled myself into a sitting position, suddenly fully awake. "Leo, is that really you?"

"Yes, it's me," said the voice, and it certainly _sounded_ like Leo. "I was finally able to steal a cell phone. Don, you have to come help me. Listen carefully." I did, as he painstakingly gave directions from the Lair to where he was being held. The route didn't seem familiar to me, but I memorized every landmark and turn that Leo described. "Please, hurry."

"I'm leaving right now," I said, and I did, without even waking my brothers.

* * *

The building looked like any other in New York. That's always how it was. Only in the movies did villains mastermind their operations from fantastical citadels. In the real world, they're in office buildings, warehouses, bars, residential districts. People never notice them because they keep expecting villains to be different from themselves.

Security was weak; I got in easily. Having infiltrated the building, I edged down the first corridor, my bo held at the ready.

I counted the turns; everything was just as Leo had told me. He was always thorough that way. Always reliable. I realized just then how lost I had been without his steady guidance.

 _Focus, Donatello._

It was only my own voice in my head. But soon, soon, I would have my brother, my leader, with me again.

I stopped and listened. Where were the guards, the alarms? Leo hadn't had time to explain how a facility so poorly secured, an organization so unprepared, had been able to hold him so long. I looked forward to hearing that story almost as much as I looked forward to tearing apart whoever had done this.

No. Stealth, Leo had said. No casualties. He would explain later.

I turned a corner, pressed my shell to the wall, peered slowly around the doorframe. _There_ was the camera. And _there_ was the cell Leo had told me he was being kept in.

I steadied my breathing, listened again, then leapt into the room. A quick strike with my bo was more than enough to destroy the camera. Then I rushed to the cage, steel bars extending from floor to ceiling, a massive lock securing the door.

"Leo!"

I glanced around. The security in this place couldn't be _that_ bad; how long until someone noticed the camera had gone offline, and sent a guard to investigate? I had to move fast.

Leo was curled on the floor of the cage. He looked weak, maybe drugged. No wonder he hadn't been able to escape.

"Leo, I'm coming," I said. "Hold on."

I slid my lockpicking kit from my wristguard, and got to work. The lock was obstinate, complex. Every time I solved one aspect, another layer of it seemed to re-seal itself. I couldn't believe how long it was taking to get the thing open.

And then -

"I've got it. I've got it. Leo -"

I threw the door open, and he barely moved.

"Donnie," he rasped, the merest scrape of a voice. "I can't walk."

"It's okay," I said. "I've got you."

He seemed to weigh nothing as I scooped him into my arms. "Is this a trap?" I hissed as I edged back towards the access point. I almost hoped it was a trap. I never knew what to do when it wasn't. "Where is everyone?"

"I don't know." He curled against my chest, too weak to move or think. "Donnie… take me home."

* * *

I didn't take him home. The extraction was too easy, and I was afraid of being followed. I took him instead to a drainage junction, a place of thundering waterfalls where we had often gone when we were children. I laid him on the mist-sprayed ledge, and reached for my medical pack.

"What did they do to you?" I asked, half to myself, as my hands slid over his atrophied limbs. "Leo, how are you still alive?"

He smiled thinly. "I… couldn't let them win."

"Them who?" I asked. He didn't seem to be wounded anywhere, just starved and exhausted. "Who did this?"

He rolled his head slowly back and forth against the cool stonework. "Not… not our usual enemies."

"God, Leo." I stretched out next to him, just pressing my face into his neck. "You don't know how much I missed you."

"It's all right, _otouto_." He brought a hand up, shakily, to cradle the back of my head. "I'm here now."

* * *

Over the years we'd had many intimate conversations beside the waterfalls, veiled by the mist and the thunder, but this wasn't one of those times. Finally, finally able to rest, Leo had fallen asleep. I had searched every inch of his skin for bugs, for scars that might conceal an implanted chip, but there was nothing there. I couldn't understand it; couldn't remember the last time anything in my life had been that easy.

I guess, sooner or later, things have to even out.

It must have been sometime after sunrise when my phone started ringing. This time, it was April.

"April, you won't believe it," I said, as soon as I answered. I couldn't wait to share the good news.

But April wasn't interested. Sometimes, she could be so self-centered. "Donnie!" she screamed down the phone. "Shadow's been kidnapped!"

"What?" I said.

"Shadow's been kidnapped!" April shrieked, so loudly I had to pull the Shell Cell away from my ear. "She's _gone!_ "

"Okay," I said. "April, I'm kind of busy right now, but I'll call Raph and he'll help you."

"You're _busy?_ " April yelled. "Donnie, what -"

"Hold on," I said, and switched lines.

"Yeah?" Raph said gruffly. I knew that tone; it was symptomatic of trying to get Mikey up and moving when he was in a bad mood.

"Raph, it's Don."

"What?" A pause while Raph dealt with something. "Donnie, why are you calling me? Ain't you in your room?"

"No, I'm -" I glanced around. "I can't tell you where I am. But Raph, listen. I've got Leo."

"Don, you're not making sense," Raph said, his voice rising. Symptomatic of dealing with stressful situations.

"I said I've got Leo!" I shouted over the roar of the water. "Raph, April just called me and said Shadow is missing. I need you to go take care of that."

"Donnie, I swear -" Some banging noises came over the phone; I didn't know what from. "Where the fuck are you?"

"I said -"

"I know what you said! Don, I'm coming after you." Raph's voice was muffled as he turned away from the speaker. "Mikey, you are going to stay right here or -"

I lowered the phone to look at the screen. In the corner of the display, a light was blinking.

Raph was tracking my location.

I threw the phone into the waterfall, and didn't hear the splash.

* * *

Leo woke up crying.

"God, Don, it hurts," he managed between sobs.

"What hurts?" I asked.

"Everything," he gasped.

I didn't know what to do other than pull him into my lap and rock him. I couldn't lose him again.

* * *

"Donnie!" Raph's shout echoed from the walls of stone and water as he came up the tunnel. I pulled Leo close to my chest, protecting him. Nothing was going to take him from me, especially not Raph. Raph had already stolen him once.

Raph knelt beside me, looked at Leo, looked at me with a strange kind of horror on his face. "Donnie," he whispered. "What have you done?"

"I saved him." I bent my head low, pressing my forehead to Leo's. "He's okay. We're all going to be okay now."

"He who?" Raph asked, his voice shaking.

" _Leo._ " I looked up, fury burning through my eyes. "Don't you recognize your own brother?"

"Donnie." Raph put one hand on my shoulder, tried to take Leo from me with the other hand. "Donnie, that ain't Leo. That's Shadow."

"You're out of your mind," I hissed, trying to turn my shell to him.

"No, Donnie, _you're_ out of your mind!" he roared, and Leo only cried harder at the noise. "For fuck's sake, you kidnapped April's baby!"

I shook my head, and Leo cried, and then Raph did too, until the falling water washed everything away.

* * *

It was later. I was home. My arms were empty, and a clock ticked, and Raph sat heavily next to me.

"How did you find me?" I whispered. "I destroyed the tracker."

"But not before I saw your beacon on the map," Raph replied, in a low voice. "The drainage junction, Donnie. We've known it our whole lives."

"What's wrong with me?" I asked.

"I don't know, Donnie," said Raph. "You're sick."

"Am I going to get well?"

"I don't know," Raph said again.

* * *

It was later. I think I hadn't moved. Raph had; he was kneeling in front of me instead of sitting next to me.

"Hey," he said. A hand on my knee. "Angel's here. She's gonna take care of you, okay?"

"Okay," I said.

* * *

Later. A van.

* * *

A farmhouse. I think I've been here before.

* * *

"Tell me again."

"It was too easy," I said. "I knew it had to be a trap. No guards. One camera; I smashed it. A locked cage; I opened it. Then I took Leo to a safe place."

Angel sat opposite me, maybe the only one of our friends who had avoided being sucked into the black hole of the Hamato clan. She had been on the periphery of our lives for years, and yet managed to continue functioning as a normal human. Through occasional updates from Casey, I had known she was working as a counselor at a center for inner-city youth. In the evenings she took classes at one of the city colleges, pursuing a degree in social work.

Somehow, she had found time in her schedule to provide emergency services for a psychotic mutant. We had been at the farmhouse - Casey's grandma's, I remembered now - for a couple of weeks, though most of that time was a blur to me. Angel told me I was very sick, but I was getting better.

She laid a couple of photographs on the kitchen table. "You smashed a baby monitor. You disassembled a crib. And you kidnapped Shadow." She studied me, her own expression unreadable. "Do you remember, Donatello?"

I looked at the photographs. A smashed baby monitor, a disassembled crib.

"Have I seen these pictures before?" I asked.

"No," said Angel. "But have you seen these _images_ before?"

I shook my head, slowly.

"It's all right," Angel said. She swept the photographs together, tapped their edges against the tabletop, laid them flat again, facedown. "Good session today, Donnie."

She said that a lot.

* * *

"Is Shadow all right?" I asked, one day while we were taking a long walk across the fields.

Angel seemed surprised by the question. Maybe she hadn't realized I'm a genius with a talent for brilliant insights. "She's fine."

"Did I break anything irreparable?"

"No."

"Is… Is April mad at me?"

A few paces before Angel answered. "She's worried about you."

"Raph and Mikey?"

"They're waiting for you to come home." Angel looked up from the path to smile supportively at me. "Everyone wants you to get well, Donnie."

"Am I sick?" I asked.

"You're making a lot of progress," Angel replied.

* * *

"I lost him twice."

Angel looked up from the notes she was writing. "No, you didn't. The second time wasn't him, Donnie."

"I lost him twice," I repeated. "The time his body died, and the time his voice died." I pressed my face into my hands. "Why can't I hear him anymore…?"

Angel closed the folder she was working on. "I don't know, Donnie."

"The last thing he told me was that I have to forgive myself," I said. "But I don't know how."

Angel came and sat by me on the couch, running a hand up my shell in what she probably thought was a comforting gesture.

"I want to go home," I said.

"Soon," Angel replied.

* * *

"Tell me again."

"I broke into April and Casey's apartment," I recited. "I destroyed a baby monitor and a crib, and I abducted their daughter."

Angel watched me closely. "Do you mean that, or are you just saying it?"

I shook my head. "No. I understand."

Angel made a note in her folder. "Where are you now?"

"At Casey's grandma's farmhouse."

"Why are you here?"

"Raph sent me to get better."

Angel was looking at me again, her pen resting lightly against the paper. "How do you feel about that?"

I couldn't stand her gaze. I looked at the grain of the tabletop instead. "I wish I had done this for him, after the accident with Mikey."

"What happened instead?"

"Leo told him to leave. I didn't argue. I never argued with Leo's orders."

"And how does that make you feel?"

The grain of the tabletop looped around itself, like an electrical circuit, like blood vessels, like an orbit.

"I'm trying to forgive myself."

* * *

It was a warm, sunny day when we closed up the farmhouse and climbed back into the van.

"Almost makes me sorry to be going back to the sewers," I commented, in reference to the inviting way the lake sparkled in the sun and the tall grass waved in the breeze.

Angel paused, her hand on the key in the ignition, but the engine not yet started. "We can stay longer, if you want."

I thought about it.

"No," I said. "I need to go home."

We were somewhere in Connecticut when Angel asked, "Do you know how long we've been away?"

"About a month," I said.

"How do you feel about having left Raph and Mikey alone together for a month?"

"You know," I said, "I'm okay. I trust them both."

"And what about yourself?" she asked.

I watched a couple of exits go by on the highway before I said, "I'm getting better."

* * *

Raph and Mike were waiting for me when I got home; Angel must have called ahead while I was packing.

"You're home!" Mike said, as he hugged me without hesitation. "You've been gone for - for a long time."

I startled a little at the stutter, at the filling in of a meaningless phrase where a specific one should have been. Hadn't Mike gotten over that?

No, he hadn't. I had just forgotten how to listen.

"Hey," Raph said, as he pulled me in for a rough embrace. "I got a message from Casey. He wanted me to give this to you word for word: Don't you ever lay a fucking finger on my daughter again. Welcome back, buddy. End quote."

"It's good to be home," I said.

I went upstairs to put my things away, while Angel had a quiet word with Raph about what we were calling my "treatment". When I came back down, she was standing near the door, waiting for me.

"I'm so proud of you, Donnie," she said. She offered a hug, and I accepted. "Take care of yourself."

Then it was just the three of us, and it felt like that had never been the case before, even though I knew it had.

"Listen, Donnie…" Raph gestured toward the couch, and we all sat down. "Mike and I talked while you were gone. We know how much you miss Leo. We know it's hard for you, that we can still hear him and you can't. If you want us to let him go… we will."

I looked at the floor for a long minute. "The last real conversation I had with Leonardo," I said - slowly, softly, finally - "he told me that I don't protect people from getting broken. I -" I looked up. "We're so broken already. I can't take this away from you. Don't -" Tears welled up in my eyes, and I wiped roughly at them with the back of my hand. "Don't stop talking to him. But please tell him I said hi."

Then my brothers were hugging me, and I felt like I had never been hugged so much in my life, nor had I ever needed it so much.

"He knows, bro," Raph said. "He's looking out for you."

I cried, and my brothers held me, and it felt like all the pieces had finally stopped falling.

* * *

That first night back in my own bed, it was very quiet. I was alone in my room. Alone in my head. There were no whispered thoughts, and no answering presence.

And for the first time in a long time, that was okay.


End file.
